It Wasn’t Me, Honey – It Was My Midlife Crisis!

Yesterday, there was a NY Times article about the social concept of the “midlife crisis.” Amazingly enough, it was almost intelligent. So close, and yet so very far. But when an article is called “Crisis? Maybe He’s a Narcissistic Jerk,” and starts out like this, I should probably know that it’s too good to be true:

With the possible exception of “the dog ate my homework,” there is no handier excuse for human misbehavior than the midlife crisis.

[. . .]

I recently heard about a severe case from a patient whose husband of nearly 30 years abruptly told her that he “felt stalled and not self-actualized” and began his search for self-knowledge in the arms of another woman.

It was not that her husband no longer loved her, she said he told her; he just did not find the relationship exciting anymore.

“Maybe it’s a midlife crisis,” she said, then added derisively, “Whatever that is.”

Outraged and curious, she followed him one afternoon and was shocked to discover that her husband’s girlfriend was essentially a younger clone of herself, right down to her haircut and her taste in clothes.

It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to see that her husband wanted to turn back the clock and start over. But this hardly deserves the dignity of a label like “midlife crisis.” It sounds more like a search for novelty and thrill than for self-knowledge.

In fact, the more I learned about her husband, it became clear that he had always been a self-centered guy who fretted about his lost vigor and was acutely sensitive to disappointment. This was a garden-variety case of a middle-aged narcissist grappling with the biggest insult he had ever faced: getting older.

But you have to admit that “I’m having a midlife crisis” sounds a lot better than “I’m a narcissistic jerk having a meltdown.”

In fact, Friedman, who is a male mental health doctor, seems to fully accept that the “midlife crisis” is not only an excuse to act like an ass much more often than any kind of serious mental condition, but also that it’s almost entirely a male phenomenon. Can you think of a woman who has claimed to have a midlife crisis? Of a woman’s behavior who has been explained or dismissed away, however bitterly, as a midlife crisis? Any depictions of the midlife crisis, defined as such, in popular media (TV, movies, books, etc.) that have women as their subjects? I’m sure that there must be a few, but I personally cannot think of one. Instead, it seems like we think only men are self-reflective enough to face existential self-doubt and fear of death, and also that only men are stupid and swayed by their genitals enough to ruin relationships and financial stability without thinking about the consequences. Men face midlife crises, women who act similarly are just selfish bitches.

But, like I said, it was too good to be true. Just when Friedman explains that only a very small number of men experience what could genuinely be referred to as a midlife crisis, you get tricked into thinking that he’s going to expose the wider myth as the sense of male entitlement that it is. Instead, we get this:

So what keeps the myth of the midlife crisis alive?

The main culprit, I think, is our youth-obsessed culture, which makes a virtue of the relentless pursuit of self-renewal. The news media abound with stories of people who seek to recapture their youth simply by shedding their spouses, quitting their jobs or leaving their families. Who can resist?

Most middle-aged people, it turns out, if we are to believe the definitive survey.

Except, of course, for the few — mainly men, it seems — who find the midlife crisis a socially acceptable shorthand for what you do when you suddenly wake up and discover that you’re not 20 anymore.

Sigh.

So, mainly men claim to have faced midlife crises. Only a small number of them actually have. The rest were just being assholes, as I imagine most of us have always suspected. They use the “midlife crisis” as a convenient excuse to cheat on their wives and leave their families without having to take any personal responsibility for their choices (hey, people change, people fall out of love, people experience lust, hurt each other and make bad decisions: but own it). But what is the culprit? Our obsession with youth.

Right. Because men are constantly judged based on personal appearance, the firmness of their bodies and their sexual desirability. As they get older, they become devalued as human beings, and in fact not even considered to have a sexuality anymore. Women are immune to the midlife crisis because women are judged more on subjective things like wealth, power, character and charisma, age is often seen as a virtue or even a sign of virility, their gray hair is regularly considered “distinguished” and no one denies that they still have sexual needs or the desire to experience fun. If there’s anyone who is the victim of our youth-obsessed culture, it’s definitely those primarily white men who are privileged enough to afford the stereotypical flashy new car, and both the time to have and ability to hide the girlfriend on the side.

Except . . . oh. Oops.

You might want to go back to the drawing board on that one, Friedman, and maybe actually think about it critically this time. If men are the ones who have a comparably much easier time aging in our society, why are the false mental illnesses striking only them? Could it be, maybe, that middle class men are generally taught to expect more from life than comfortable and routine domesticity — much more so than women? Could it be that women are socially seen to hold more responsibility towards children, and often don’t feel like they have the privilege to break up the family based on their sexual whims? Could it be a male sense of sexual entitlement? That many men in this group seem to face some kind of stereotypical propensity towards not helping with the kids, not cleaning the house, not bothering to thank their wives for doing so and then wondering why she doesn’t want to fuck him? Maybe that these men make commitments to monogamy, don’t feel like keeping them and yet still don’t want to be seen as the asshole who cheats on his wife? Or that society doesn’t really seem to have a firm expectation that men will stay monogamous, regardless of their promises, but crucifies any woman who cheats? What about the fact that we often still don’t expect heterosexual women to want excitement, and certainly not to want more than the dream of a nuclear family?

Eh, who knows. I’m not a doctor. Most likely, this has absolutely nothing to do with gender. It’s probably the youth thing.